COPYRIGHT: The researcher assumes full responsibility for conforming with the laws of copyright. Whenever possible, the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives will provide information about copyright owners and other restrictions, but the legal determination ultimately rests with the researcher. Requests for permission to publish material from this collection should be discussed with the Head of Special Collections and Archives.

Ernest van den Haag
Biographical Sketch

Ernest van den Haag (1914-2002) was a conservative commentator of social issues, especially crime, and one of America's foremost proponents of the death penalty.[1] He said he was born an intellectual and called himself a strong political conservative, but almost a libertarian. He authored several books and book chapters and contributed hundreds of articles to journals, magazines, and newspapers from 1950-2000.

Ernest van den Haag was born in The Hague in 1914 and was raised in Italy where he began his early political life as a left-wing activist and communist. In 1937 he was nearly killed by a political assassin from Mussolini's fascist regime. Van den Haag suffered five bullet wounds and spent nearly three years in Italian prisons, including 18 months in solitary confinement in Naples before the start of World War II. After being released and fearing re-imprisonment, he fled to Switzerland and then to France where he studied psychiatry at the Sorbonne in Paris. Soon, he was arrested as an enemy alien Italian and an agitator against the government. He managed to escape to Spain and then to Portugal prior to Hitler's invasion. From Portugal he was able to make his way to the United States in 1940 where he arrived not knowing English. In New York he sold vegetables and worked as a bus boy. He was able to secure admission to the University of Iowa where a group of faculty recognized his intellectual gifts and agreed to pay his tuition.

After receiving his M.A. in economics in 1942 as the U.S. entered World War II,
van den Haag went to work for the Office of War Information as a propaganda analyst.
That same year he met Sidney Hook, a famous social philosopher, who was a catalyst
in van den Haag's thinking. Of his friendship with Sydney Hook, van den Haag said,
"Sydney converted me and I not only stopped being a communist but I became an
anti-communist although it no longer means much."[2] He began a part-time
teaching career as an instructor at Hofstra College of New York lecturing in
Psychology and Sociology. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from New York
University in 1952. As early as 1953, van den Haag was contributing essays
to magazines arguing against communism. In 1956, van den Haag authored his
first book, Education as an Industry and co-authored a sociology textbook,
The Fabric of Society, in 1957.

Ernest van den Haag's writings garnered the attention of William F. Buckley,
Jr. when, in 1957, Buckley asked him to contribute articles to the National
Review. From 1957 to 1994, van den Haag wrote close to 200 articles for
the National Review and remained a friend and consultant for 45 years.
Buckley's obituary of van den Haag stated: "His special skill was the crisp
essay in which he distilled his thought and analysis with precisionist care."[3]

Van den Haag's book, Punishing Criminals: Concerning a Very Old and Painful
Question (Basic Books, 1975), had a long popularity and launched his status
as an expert and fearless debater in issues of criminal justice and the death
penalty. In addition to his writing career, van den Haag was an expert witness
for many court cases in local, state, federal, and international jurisdictions.
He testified as an expert in areas including desegregation, criminal justice,
and pornography. He was comfortable taking controversial stands on tough issues
such as his criticism over Brown v. Board of Education. He was also a fierce
debater of many issues. "He has said he would debate anyone on anything. He
has read and thought lucidly about everything," said Edward Banfield, professor
of Government at Harvard University.[4] Van den Haag was especially active in
debating the issue of the death penalty. He spent most of his life defending
the issue based on the argument of deterrence, but later evolved the basis of
his argument on the need for the death penalty as just punishment for severe
criminals.

Ernest van den Haag accomplished much in his lifetime. Among the many positions he held were: Lecturer in Psychology and Sociology, The New School for Social Research, 1953-1980; Adjunct Professor, New York University; Psychoanalyst in private practice, 1955-1982; Fellow of the American Sociological Association beginning in 1959; 1966 Guggenheim Fellow; 1972 Senior Fellow for the National Endowment for the Humanities; Visiting Professor, CUNY; Lecturer at dozens of universities and colleges including Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and Berkeley; Visiting Professor of Criminology, School of Criminal Justice, State University of New York at Albany, 1978-1983; John M. Olin Professor of Jurisprudence and Public Policy, Fordham University, 1982-1988; Distinguished Scholar, The Heritage Foundation; Member, Council on Foreign Relations; Philadelphia Society (Former President 1978-1979).

Ernest van den Haag spoke at conferences as recently as 1999 and published articles through 2000. Van den Haag died after a brief illness at age 88 on March 21, 2002, in Mendham, NJ.

Ernest van den Haag
Scope & Content Note

The papers of Ernest van den Haag cover the years 1935-2000. His publications from 1950-2000 comprise the bulk of the collection. Comparing this collection of publications to his curriculum vitae, it appears that most of his published and unpublished materials are contained in the collection. Van den Haag took special care to organize his writings by assigning them a number, probably in order of creation, placing each publication, along with rough drafts and related correspondence, into individual folders. He often followed up on references to his work, adding them to the appropriate folder. The publications in this collection include articles in published form, drafts, and related correspondence. Types of publications include transcripts from appearances on television shows in the 1970s and 1980s, files on the books which he authored, rough drafts for chapters, and hundreds of articles written for various journals, magazines, and newspapers from 1950-2000. A few articles include printed versions in at least five other languages.

The collection's publications cover a wide array of social science issues of the mid to late 20th century from an intellectual conservative's view. Topics include American culture, criminal justice, education, conservatism versus liberalism, and American politics. Van den Haag had a special political interest in U.S. foreign policy and commented on the Vietnam War, foreign wars, and the issues of the Cold War. His writing had an impact on people and events of his day. President Nixon once wrote van den Haag to thank him for the balanced views concerning the U.S. soldiers and war crimes during Vietnam when he offered during his appearance on the Dick Cavett Show. Congressman Charles Rangel wrote to express his opposing views to van den Haag on the legalization of drugs. Sometimes van den Haag's articles would spark a debate between himself and other authors that would continue over the course of several issues of a periodical.

The collection contains some court testimony from van den Haag as an expert witness in cases including the U.S. House and Senate hearings and U.S. Supreme Court cases concerning desegregation in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Also represented are pornography cases between towns and theaters both at the local and U.S. Supreme Court levels.

The collection contains many articles, debate notes, and drafts of speeches from conferences and meetings discussing capital punishment. Most of these cover the period from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s.

A book collection was given to the University Libraries along with the manuscript collection and is part of the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives' book collection.

Ernest van den Haag
Series Descriptions

This series contains two large bibliographies of Ernest van den Haag's writings. The first bibliography covers his works from 1950-1982. The second includes his writings up to 1998. These bibliographies organize his writings alphabetically by topic and each publication includes an assigned number. These numbers do not reflect a strict, but rather general chronological order (i.e. number one was published in 1968 while number two was published in 1954). The numbering system probably reflects the order in which the articles were begun. Some were published quickly while others took longer. This series also contains van den Haag's curriculum vitae from 1973-1998 as well as short biographies from 1973-1989.

This subseries contains the published writings of Ernest van den Haag arranged numerically by the number assigned each. This subseries represents the bulk of the collection and is one of the best sources for studying the philosophy of Ernest van den Haag. He wrote articles that cover a wide spectrum of political and social issues of his day. This subseries is unique in that it contains not only van den Haag's drafts, but in most cases the articles in their final published form, providing the researcher a glimpse of the contemporary context. These publications include drafts for books, reviews, chapters, and articles by van den Haag. The publications were assigned individual numbers probably reflecting the order of creation not the date of publication. The arrangement within each folder is as follows: the final published form of the article usually containing the periodical cover page, the contents page, and the article itself; correspondence, usually between van den Haag and the publisher, as well as any other related correspondence; rough drafts of the article, usually in order from oldest to newest; research material used in creation of the article as well as articles from other authors that represent debate over van den Haag's views and facts. Publication number 194 contains a letter from President Nixon thanking van den Haag for his balanced views on war crimes in Vietnam. Publication number 338 is an excellent example of the type of controversy surrounding some articles written by van den Haag. Publication number 439 contains a letter from Congressman Charles Rangel opposing Haag's views on the legalization of illegal drugs.

This subseries contains the unpublished writings of van den Haag. Approximately half are dated. The dated writings are arranged chronologically within the series while undated writings are arranged alphabetically by title with untitled writings at the end arranged alphabetically by subject. The writings within this subseries were identified as unpublished either because of Van den Haag's title on the folder or because they contained no identifying publication information.

This subseries contains references to van den Haag from various publications. Ernest van den Haag collected any references to himself that he found or which were sent to him. These references are in the form of news clippings, photocopies, and clipped portions of articles. These references were arranged by van den Haag chronologically and in some cases folders are also titled such as "1985, Smoking". These titled folders are arranged alphabetically by subject.

This series contains photocopies of court transcripts and bills on cases
before local, state, federal, and international courts. Ernest van den Haag
was called upon to testify as an expert witness before the U.S. House and Senate
subcommittees and the U.S. Supreme Court between 1960 and 1973 in cases that
involved desegregation. His testimony was also used at the International Court
of Justice at The Hague concerning South West African relations with Ethiopia
and Liberia in 1966. Ernest van den Haag's testimony in two pornography cases
reveals the struggle between towns and theaters showing adult films in the
early 1980s. Other topics van den Haag testified on include medicine,
psychology, labor, and homosexuality. Some of the material gathered in
this series also includes proposed outlines for testimony, questions to
be asked, preliminary notes, and van den Haag's curriculum vitae. Expert
testimony usually begins with van den Haag presenting himself by answering
questions about his knowledge and background that established him as an
expert on the subject.

The series includes an audiotape likely produced by FCC officials for other
FCC officials and/or consultants such as van den Haag. There is no introduction
to the contents or authors of the cassette and it begins with the voice of an
unidentified narrator. The recording contains narrated comments between
excerpts from the Neil Rogers Show, a radio talk show from Miami. The narrator
apparently felt that the show had violated an FCC decision.

This series contains correspondence arranged alphabetically by topic and chronologically within each folder. An interesting group of van den Haag's earliest correspondence includes letters written to professors at Duke and Harvard Universities proposing an experiment on animals to prove his theory of deterrence as a learned behavior. Some of his correspondence involves his duties at Fordham University between 1981 and 1983. Much of van den Haag's correspondence was about his publications and therefore can be found within the publication folders in Series 2.

This subseries contains lecture notes handwritten by Ernest van den Haag on yellow legal size paper. This paper is very acidic and brittle. Van den Haag lectured on sociology and psychology while at the New School for Social Research from 1953 to 1980. The courses include Philosophy of Personality, The Individual in Crisis, and Popular Culture. his lectures touched on many topics in social science including democracy, postulates, and many aspects of American culture. Some materials contained in this subseries were collected in the years leading up to his lecture career including the 1930s and 1940s, but most of the lecture material is from the early 1950s through 1981.

This subseries contains readings from 1993-1997 authored by professors from various universities addressed to members of colloquiums at New York University School of Law. These readings are entitled Colloquium on Constitutional Theory and Colloquium on the Study of Law, Philosophy, and Social Theory. These readings are arranged alphabetically by title and chronologically thereafter by semester and year. It is not clear what role van den Haag had in these colloquiums, but at this time, he was Adjunct Professor of Social Philosophy at the New York University School of Law.

This subseries contains some documents related to van den Haag's position as John M. Olin Professor of Jurisprudence and Public Policy at Fordham University from 1982-1988. There is a Fordham Bulletin, course descriptions and schedules, and grant contract expenditure reports. The Olin Lecture material is correspondence related to van den Haag's duties in setting up a speaker for the John M. Olin Lecture in 1983.

This series contains brochures, invitations, and documents related to conferences and meetings that Ernest van den Haag attended. There is one conference invitation from 1949 that lists van den Haag as a speaker, but the bulk of the brochures cover the 1960s forward. Van den Haag attended and spoke at several gatherings. There is one file containing speech drafts and correspondence from a conference in 1965, but the majority of conferences with such files range from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. These conferences and meetings are mostly related to the issue of criminal justice and capital punishment. A number of conference and meeting files were assigned publication numbers since they may have been later published. These can be found in Series 2 Subseries 2.

Ernest van den Haag
Box and Folder List

Series 6: Academic, 1935-1997
Subseries 2: New York University School of Law, 1992-1997

Box 4
Folder

1. Colloquium on Constitutional Theory, Spring 1996
2. Colloquium on Constitutional Theory, Spring 1997
3. Program for the Study of Law, Philosophy and Social Theory, Fall 1993
4. Program for the Study of Law, Philosophy and Social Theory, Fall 1994
5. Program for the Study of Law, Philosophy and Social Theory, Fall 1995
6. Program for the Study of Law, Philosophy and Social Theory, Fall 1996
7. Program for the Study of Law, Philosophy and Social Theory, Fall 1996
8. Program for the Study of Law, Philosophy and Social Theory, Fall 1997
9. Program for the Study of Law, Philosophy and Social Theory, Fall 1997